First Big Snow of Winter

Just like that fall has slipped into winter, I really should be saying, finally it's gone into winter though because actually been quite mild this season with lots of warm, sunny days. In fact it was nearing 70 just two days ago! So It's more like we had this coming. So what does the winter season and this snow mean for the gardening season?

 

Well some people may say the winter season is the most anti-gardening season of all of them. While there isn't much work to be done in this season I find it's the only season that forces one to take a step back and just enjoy, unlike the warm season which is demanding that all the time be spent working or "getting things done" It's also a season of rest for the plants so while its not the most exciting gardening season it is a necessary one. Guess you can say I was ready so to speak. Being originally from Northwest Wisconsin, a climate much colder then Iowa, the beauty of snowfall can still be appreciated in my eyes and it does bring a totally new perspective not any other season can show. We will see how long the snow lasts however I have a feeling it will be gone before Christmas.

 

 

 

As for the Dinosaurs..... its their favorite season! Low rainfall and very low humidity is the perfect rust-stopping weather and any metal Dinosaur would say ( if it could ) that's the best thing about it! Besides they got their scarfs, what more do they need?

There is one single winter bloom to show off. This Snowdrop flowered at the very beginning of the month! It's been a very mild December, with really no cold days and even many of them in the 50s even 60s, giving the reason why it can be said "we had the snow coming" Enjoy the winter season while we have it and remember, spring is the next one and it will be here before we know it!

Last Remaining Flowers, Getting Ready For winter

Leaves of Hardy Cyclamen

 

It's not even yet Halloween and we've already had two bouts of winter in the form of snow although my area was missed by the epic 9" that the north metro got during the middle of this month we did get the record cold highs barely above freezing. Since then it has warmed back up into the 50s and next week its supposed to get near 60 so at least there will be some fall left. The warm up came just it time as there are still some flowers to enjoy! The season started with Crocus and also ends the same, couple of patches of these Autumn Crocus still showing off their nice deep purple flowers. Flowers are always nice for color, but we all know there isn't much more time before we will have a break from them. So I like to look for other things to be excited about and that's leaves, seedheads and structure. The beauty of these features are often overlooked during the rest of the year. One such example are these Hardy Cyclamen- the flowers were great but so are the leaves! Their circular patterned leaves hug the ground and are hardy enough to survive some pretty harsh temperatures. So get out there and look for beauty in some of the other things the garden has to show.

Thuja "in Jail'

This looks sorta like a certain Dinosaur might be in trouble, but in reality its help keep rabbits away from gnawing at my sculptures toes. As the grass slowly starts to become dormant and eventually gets covered in snow the food supply for rabbits goes down drastically and damage begins to happen to woody trees and shrubs. In some cases with this damage, I've seen it become severe enough to kill off the tops of plants or create bald spots on evergreens. So to combat this, this seems to be the only nearly full proof way to preventing it is to fence off like shown. Unfortunately, there are so many throughout my gardens its a big job- so my future garden plans are to slowly reduce those favored plants- and so far the only two plants I've seen rabbits never touch are Boxwood and Junipers. Now is the time to be out there starting to add protection because half a a spirea that was planted in my back yard was already gone this week so be sure to get out there and protect your young trees and shrubs!
 

Flowers of Fall

Autumn Felice Goldenrod

We're more then half way through September and the days are getting shorter. Fall is surely upon us now even though as of current the upper 80 degree highs don't much feel like fall. The weather this month has been very floppy, it was hot and very dry to start out the month, then it was cold and wet for about 5 days when we got 3" of rain all at once, then for the past 2 weeks hot and dry again. The erratic rainfall along with the prior severe drought is causing a few trees to turn earlier then normal and start dropping leaves. I noticed this on my own Sugar Maple with dropping about 1/10th of its leaves, and its more normal for it to turn closer to Halloween. Hoping the early drop wont spoil the would-be show later on. Currently the main show are the many flowers of early fall. Asters and Goldenrod are bursting into bloom along with other fall favorites

Fireworks Goldenrod

Ohio Goldenrod

Showy Goldenrod

Goldenrods

 

 

 

One such fall favorite are Goldenrods- a very under-used plant in the garden world. They get the blame for being a weedy plant that caused allergy issues even though the pollen isn't the type that effects that and unknown to many there are quite a few types ( actually likely hundreds ) but that also means many don't have runners and don't spread.  Now I'm not saying I have not removed a Goldenrod type because it being aggressive because there certainly are, however the majority of the ones in my gardens have not spread at all. The benefits of Goldenrods include beautiful late-season flowers that last a long time and the pollinator habitat they provide is significant. There have been several different species of butterflies and bees both that adore these plants. Including Monarchs on their way back to Mexico!

 

 

 

 

 

New England Aster 'Purple Dome'

Smooth Aster

Smooth Aster

Heath Aster

Asters

 The next  important fall flowers are Asters. There are many different kinds although New England is the most common type widely available. I chose 4 or 5 different kinds to add the highest chance at seeing color since unfortunately rabbits are a common feeder on these plants. In fact I often have to fence off to have any chance of long term survival. It's worth it now however because the fall color they provide is phenomenal and they pollinators are all over this just like the goldenrods.

Mammoth Mum Yellow Quill

Mammoth Mum Red Daisy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hardy Mums

 

 Of course the fall garden would not be complete without at least one mum. I actually have 2 both are Mammoth Mum series which are a type developed by the University of Minnesota meaning you know they are hardy. I noticed some types bloom rather early, like the yellow quill starts blooming in Mid-July and lasts through fall. Red Daisy just started to flower now, which the plan was for fall color so the later bloom tends to be favored for me.

Gentian Flower

Bottle Gentian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Odd

 

 Now going into the more uncommon types here we have two different types of Gentian, one is called Bottle Gentian which always have the appearance of being "closed"  it has specialized flowers that only allows certain bees to are are strong enough to access its pollen to ensure little chance of cross pollination with the wrong flower types. The other type is a open-flower variety kind which I cannot remember the kind. This is another flower which I intended for fall color but it actually starts blooming in July and keeps going until now.

Hardy Cyclamen

Toad Lily

& Unique

Here are some fall bloomers for more-shaded sites. Cyclamen which is not known to be extra hardy for our area mine had done very well the past few years and has multiplied well in its shady location in rather poor- dry soil its in. I've since added other types of fall blooming Cyclamen and also trying some spring-blooming types. I'm just a real fan of their little delicate blooms. They other flower here is called Toad Lily and it blooms well in the shade. It takes a very long time for the flower to appear but its very worth the wait because the blooms are quite unique and not like any other fall blooming flowers.

Fall Displays

 Final stop is the fall display on my front porch which includes Kale and Pansies in the pots because I feel I never know what fall weather will bring and these two plant types will survive any frosts or freezes weather can throw at it and make it easily into November sometimes all the way to Thanksgiving. Also added some fall pumpkins to finish it off much a fan of the golden one, such a nice warm creamy color and not so "traditional"

 

 

Iowa Derecho 2020

The Iowa Derecho of 2020 is one for the record books. Starting around Omaha around 8-9am and blew across Western Iowa arriving in the Des Moines right around 11am. This storm wasn't like any regular thunderstorm with high winds, this one hit with such extreme winds some officials are comparing it to a category 3 hurricane. Peak wind gusts ranged 75MPH to 106MPH. and what was also so different about this storm is that high winds lasted for an unprecedented 20-30 minutes! Buildings and infrastructure here in the midwest were not built to handle such force and speaking horticulturaly, trees are not used to having to endure that kind of wind so damage to homes was severe and thousands of trees fell devastating cities urban tree canopy. The power was knocked out to more then half of the metro along now counting the hundreds of thousands out in the country. Power crews were overwhelmed easily and it took more then a week to have everything fully restored. The storm already has estimated damages in the billions of dollars range.

I was at the garden center in Cumming where I took this video out the front door The strength of the winds in this storm were like nothing I've ever seen even through the years storm chasing. It was very intense but it came in waves, peaking and lessening up several times. The power went out at the garden center but was restored around 3pm.

 

Tree limb down

My house is located on the south side of Des Moines near the airport, where the winds were registered at an impressive 75MPH. Of course, it was very concerning what I was going to be coming home to. The power was out to the entire neighborhood and it was a challenge getting around blocked roads and emergency crews. Arriving, things were a total mess, there were branches and debris everywhere. Gutter spouts blown off, items that didn't belong to me in the front lawn and the gardens were a disaster but I am very fortunate that there was no damage to my house and no trees came down and most everything remained in tacked. Even though the yard was covered in limbs, the tree limb above was the only one that actually came from my own tree. Still not exactly sure now but the other Sugar Maple in my front lawn didn't even loose a single branch! Also take note Little Lucky held strong and didn't take a tumble in the wind!

 

Stars visible from Des Moines 8/10/20

 

The power outage lasted through the evening and it was down to candle light, but it only last 12 hours. Using the word only because that was very short as many nearby streets didn't regain power until days later. Feeling grateful not having to deal with loosing food. I lent my freezer space to hold my moms food who was without power for 4 days.

Branches from neighbors trees

 

Most of the tree limbs from neighboring trees along side or being my yard that landed on my side. The neighbors Silver Maples took a beating and lost many limbs, I was SO lucky none hit my house or garage.

 

 

The neighbors Silver Maple used ot have many branches that covered this area behind my garage to where you would not see the sky, now there is a huge opening in the canopy.

Whats interesting about this photo is that there are no Black Walnut trees in my yard, but the  sucking forces of the wind blew huge patches of leaves and branches from a long distance to the opposite side of the garage.

My next door neighbors were not as lucky as me. They lost many of their beautiful old trees. The tree to the left had a very large branch snap off and on the way down it took out half of the tree in the next yard over, It really is a shame to lose so many nice old trees with such charter and I'm personally concerned the damage this storm caused will make people less likely to plant new trees for the ones lost. My yard and gardens will take days to clean up and some flowers wont ever return this year, but in the scheme of things, I feel for the people who lost much more then I and I'm truly grateful it wasn't worse then it was because driving around its easy to see how it could have been.

 

Let the natives begin!

Front yard view

 This is one of my most favorite times of the year because its when the natives plants begin to show off their stuff and begin blooming. While not true of all non-native plant times, most bloom earlier in the season and are done blooming by now. Some may even look fairly ratty, native plants are warm season perennials, which means they are slower to come up in spring and like to grow in hot weather. While the slower grower is a bit of a negative, the blooms pop right in the middle of the heat of summer leaving a garden full of blooms while other are back to green.

Great Black Wasp 7/19/20

 

Compass Plant w/ Bee 7/19/20

I designed my gardens with native plants in mind, and made sure that at least 90% of the plant material that was going in was native to Iowa, while the above reason with the color they provide was certainty an important factor when it was decided to use them, the main and real reason for going "native" was for nature and pollinators in general. There are numerous studies that show bees, butterflies prefer native plants and I can say there has been a huge increase of visiting insects to the yard since the gardens were added. Moving into my house nearly 3 years ago when there was not a single plant in the yard there was no visiting insects to speak of. Now that the plants have been added there is a surprising amount that have come in from everywhere! I've seen 6 or 7 different species of bees and 3 or 4 different butterflies. As they're discovered, trying to learn about them. One of My favorites is the great black wasp, while their large size makes them kinda scary to look at they are gentle pollinators and NOT aggressive because they don't live in a colony or hive they are solitary and each female takes care of their own young.

Greayhead Coneflower

Ironweed 7/19/20

To add even more of a reason to add native plants, not only are they beautiful and help the pollinators out, they are extremely tolerant of many things, poor soils, drought and changing weather conditions! Here are couple of my best native plants, Ironweed with its rich purple flowers and Greyheaded Coneflower, a nice yellow sunflowers shaped like little shooting stars.

Prairie Garden 7/19/20

The prairie garden which is exclusively all natives is getting quite tall these days. It looks really nice against this otherwise boring fence. Soon the tall coreopsis will bloom and it be very nice shades of yellow. When planting natives I am always careful not to get all flowers and plenty of the natives grasses are also added here in this bed is, Big Bluestem, Indiangrass, Little Bluestem and Sideoats to name some.

Side View

Front Yard View

Ending this post with a couple views of the front and side of my house. There is an air conditioner on the side photos but its covered in this view by the tall native plants. The south ( front ) of my house gets a fair amount of sun but its mostly after 12pm due to a large tree on the east side of the house. The west side receives the most sun and the plants do quite well even though its a very hot side. Booming in yellow are Tall Black Eye Susan, Regular Black Eye Susan and Compass plant The Compass plant was a very long wait to experience its flowers, took 3 years to establish. The leaves are very unique making the wait easier. Grasses here are Switch Grass and Big Bluestem. I have varieties bluestem and strait bluestem and the strait always grows taller and earlier in the season. I hope this post encourages you to plant natives in your own garden, every yard makes a difference, even one!

Early Summer Garden Blooms

Tiger Lily Red

Tiger Lily Pink

Tiger Lily Yellow

In typical Iowa fashion the weather has turned hot and humid. Rain has been strangely plentiful throughout the season so far. Saying strangely because for 5 out of the 6 years I've been in Iowa it always seemed there was a dry spell at some point where the grass turns all brown. Last year that never happened and it so far has gone that way this year up until this point. In the garden now it's lily season! I was very much into lilies growing up but in my "adult" gardens they never really made the cut until last year when it was time to bring back some of those memories. Starting with Day lilies last year and this year trying out some Tiger Lily bulbs added this spring. I decided to get a mixed color bag of which are the type that hang upside down like bells. Surprisingly the mixed bag had every color advertised in the photo ( how rare is that! ) They were planted back in April and now are bursting into bloom. Their tall stature makes it easy to tuck a few almost anywhere! Looking around the neighborhood, Lilies are coloring up gardens everywhere right now with their beautiful shades of orange, pink, white, red just about any color of the rainbow and even some having a combination of more then one. Asiatic Lilies are the ones blooming now and soon to come will be the oriental lilies which are different because they have a wonderful fragrance to go with their blooms something that the other lilies lack. Oriental lilies color shades are not as bold as the other types but come in a nice range of pinks and pastels.

Prairie Rose 6/21/2020

 The Iowa State Flower! This is the only rose in my garden and its a spreading native variety. The blooms are wonderfully fragrant but non long lived only lasting a couple days. This started off as a very un rooted plant transplanted from another area and I really didn't think it was going to survive. Was also thinking this was a goner from the rabbits in the neighborhood but it did make it to flowering!

Flowering Bush Clematis 6/20/2020

Cat mint 6/25/2020

 On the left my bush Clematis is in full bloom last week, Rumors were that this is not a very hardy plant for our area but it seems to be thriving. The hanging bell shaped blooms are a really cool touch in the garden and the seed heads are just as cool. To the right we we have newer variety of cat mint which is very rabbit resistant and also much more upright and most importantly does not flop! Some say in the horticulture industry this will be a replacement for Saliva.

Pale Purple Coneflower

Purple Poppy Mallow

The native plants time to shine comes just as the hottest most humid weather of summer starts to come in. It can be a dull time for some gardens but with native plants you really have a powerful  burst of color through July and August and guess what, water isn't needed! Here we have Pale Purple Coneflower which is a much more perennial-like Coneflower and it native to full sun sites in prairies. It takes a couple years to mature enough to flower but its worth the wait! The petals are skinnier then what most are used to but its so unique in its own way. Purple Poppy Mallow adds a rare color to the garden not usually seen in perennials, its hot pink. This plant really enjoys wetter sites but seems to do okay in my gardens which have normal soils. Here you can see it is paired with yellow Yarrow a combination which was more or less an accident but I like it!

Rolling On Into Summer

Peony bloomed May 21st 2020

The old fashioned peonies are blooming, my signature flower that the season has changed and moved on into summer. Why the reason for this particular plant? A couple of reasons actually. One is that in my hometown ( 340 miles north ) Peonies bloom middle to end of June- just in time for the first day of summer. The other is that once these bloom right on cue sticky summer-like air always seems to arrive right about when they start to bloom. Peonies are always something that's been in my garden, in fact all but 1 house I lived in had one somewhere. When first moving into this house there was a line of them out front. It wasn't quite the look I was going for so all but one was removed and given away. It sat pretty lonely in the lawn until the new garden that was added incorporated it right in.

Amsonia 5/27/2020

Baptisia as of 5/27/2020

Also in the garden with the peony is this amazing Baptisia also called False Indigo. I wish I remember the variety because I love it! There was another one of these up by my house which was my first Baptisia which is nice but the color is very muted. On this it is amazing and an intense dark blue. The bark blue one comes from Jenkins Garden Market in Carlisle. The Amsonia was from the same place, this is a fern-leaf type which I've noticed does much better then the other type. At least in my garden anyways.

Iris 'Dividing line'

Iris 'Stars and Stripes forever'

Just like always the Iris are in full glory right now which always happens right along with Peonies. Both of these were gifts from a co-worker and one Stars and Stripes forever has gotten quite large. I was a fan of the blue and white coloration. The other is a smaller Iris so the requested was made to get one. It's very nice but both are!

Salvia 'Color Spires Pink Dwan'

So something has to be made clear here, I am NOT a fan of the purple Salvia! Its something that has always passed up for other flowers because it just never interested me- not even a little. Then I saw this color type, I had to have it at first glace, the small blooms are larger and a pleasant light pink color. Another two-toned one was added near it this year. I'm hoping the stronger flower stalks will help with the issue of falling over which is very common with these. finger crossed!

Hosta varieties

Rhododendron 'Rosum Elegans' 5/27/2020

So another thing that was hard for me to get into was needle evergreens. there fine but feel they are more meant for northern climates which doesn't fit in a heartland area in my opinion. So what I do is add boardleaf evergreens. There are three types of Rhododendrons in my lawn this was is large-leaf type variety Rosum Elegans which is superior for hardiness because typically you would not see these in our region. The late blooms are nice surprise color going into the warm season a great shrub for a shaded space. Speaking of shaded space, My Hostas look downright fantastic this year! The "mild" spring and lack of heat has really brought out their color and nothing has faded yet as it typically does around this time of year. These have been filling in nicely and getting larger. The green one on the top of the hill is my favorite for its name, 'T-Rex'

Columbine in the woodland 5/27/2020

Prairie Garden 5/27/2020

The prairie garden doing its typical early summer fast growth and its filling in quite nicely. The bearded tongue is about to begin blooming. This garden has much of its color in the middle to late part of the season since all these plants are native and they tend to bloom out in the heat of summer. A plant blooming now though are the Columbine which are over in the woodland garden. They really look nice this year and they are starting to seed in other areas, which of course I want.

Woodland Garden 5/27/2020

While I'm showing off the Woodland Garden I must say how proud I am of how this garden is finally taking off! It took a couple years but finally everything is starting to fill in. This is an extremely dense shaded part of my lawn and not suitable for mowing so I planed lots of Pennsylvanian sedge which is a native grass that thrives in shade and fills out. I mixed Hosta into the violets which were already there and added a few other woodland natives. The two Dinosaurs in this photo that live in the Woodland Garden are Little Lucky the T-Rex and a new arrival to the garden Petra the Pterodactyl. The ferns really kick of this garden and give it that extra prehistoric look!